


Here Again

by thecountessolivia



Category: Cloud Atlas (2012), Orlando - Virginia Woolf
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dreams, Established Relationship, Jealousy, M/M, Multi, Music, Obscure Crossover, Playful conversations, Romance, Sex Talk, Slow Burn, Some lovely sex, Threesome Fantasies, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-05-30 07:20:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6414268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecountessolivia/pseuds/thecountessolivia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The score for a strange new project has Robert Frobisher struggling with composer's block. To combat his lover's creative slump, Rufus Sixsmith suggests a sun-soaked Sicilian sojourn. But life is never short on surprise and whimsy. Whilst on their Mediterranean retreat, Robert and Rufus meet a fellow traveller along Fate's winding path...</p><p>With kind permission, this story is set in the universe of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1882467">Rehfan's "Stars and Hearts"</a>, a stunning "Cloud Atlas" fic everyone should read immediately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Oak Bed

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Stars and Hearts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1882467) by [Rehfan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehfan/pseuds/Rehfan). 



> “It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?” - Vita Sackville-West

Inside Rufus Sixsmith's head the whole world was frost and ice.

He must have been on the cusp of consciousness, because by now he'd acknowledged the absurdity of his dream: his brain had managed to conjure up scenes of a colossal freeze while Rufus himself was sleeping off a hangover in the cosseting warmth of a Sicilian villa.

Despite the dichotomy, the dream refused to budge. Rufus was to remain on the frozen river for a while longer, skidding aimlessly through the crowded, costumed carnival that had spilled its music and lit its bonfires on swathes of impenetrable ice.

He slipped and staggered and shivered. In his dream he was ill-dressed and still drunk, as drunk as he had been the night before, when he'd gleefully succumbed to the abundance of Nero d'Avola in the villa's cellar. Outrageously attired attendants, skates clasped on with huge metal rosettes and crystal decanters glinting on silver trays, would scrape to a halt before him and refill his cup. With indifferent nods, they'd then whirl off to attend to the many groups of courtiers gliding past Rufus with infinitely more grace, despite the heavy fur-trimmed extravagance of their Elizabethan garb.

Music was everywhere. It spilled from the candle-lit tents and brightened up the bonfires. It reigned over the banter and laughter and dances, none of which the lonesome Sixsmith was invited to take part in. Lost and recognising not a soul, Rufus sought, as one does in dreams, to find some rationale for his presence at this fantastical frozen fête.

He surmised he must have been summoned by the music. As if in answer to his dream-logic, the joyful trumpets, flutes and cymbals veered at once into melodies Rufus recognised - intimately, but only in fragments. And it wasn't long before their notes swelled loud enough to draw Rufus back into the waking world.

The songs splintered into strange wet noises and for a flitting moment, caught somewhere between dream and reality, Sixsmith feared the ice was melting beneath him. But amidst the sound of nearby splashing Rufus heard the laughter of two beloved voices, the higher one breaking into occasional shrieks, and his waking heart relaxed with tenderness and relief. Somewhere outside, not too far beyond the bedroom, the cheery chatty cacophony carried on, just distant enough for Rufus to miss out on its gist. Then a third voice, firm and female, called out and Rufus' rudimentary Italian kicked in to grasp it.

"Megan! Dai, ragazza! Muoviti!"

After that, the voices began to trail off. Rufus heard, his eyes still glued shut, the pitter patter of wet feet, a closing door and the running of a shower.

Sixsmith's world was now silence and splintering headache.

He craned up from the pillows and blinked back the thickness of sleep that clung to his eyelids. Limbs sprawled upon a sea of impractical satin sheets, he was as alone in the carved oak bed as he had been in his dream. Having let out an inelegant grunt and tasted a sour mouthful of his own breath, he was glad for it. 

Trying to ignore the dull hurt in his head, Rufus looked about to appreciate again the staggering size and sparse decor of the bedroom. Its walls were stuccoed a creamy white and stood bare. Ahead, facing the bed, heavy vermillion curtains concealed the sprawl of two windows, lending the interior that particular brand of murk which exists indoors only when the sun is blazing thick outside. Nearer, to the left, stood a huge, handsome sideboard which last night had been unceremoniously surrounded with suitcases and covered with smaller belongings.

But for the bed itself, the only other object in the bedroom was a huge black beast of a thing, squatting ponderously on the cross-patterned terracotta tiles. It was a thing which Rufus didn't think could ever exist as a feature of a holiday rental. A grand piano. It looked otherworldly and almost certainly insulted to be decorated with laptops and empty wine bottles. 

Rufus' head hit the pillow with another aching grunt and his eyes were cast up to the thick beams crossing the pitched roof of the bedroom. He spread a slow smile that nearly turned to a chuckle: from one of the beams swung a pair of khaki trousers, a remnant of last night's antics.  _And so we've hoisted our flag here already_ , he thought. 

Coddled by the easy silence of the room, Rufus felt his eyes grow heavy again. He let them close. Almost at once, he was snatched back into the remnants of his dream's wintry revel and shivered again beneath the sweaty sheets. There, amidst the festivities he'd found so alien and alienating, recognition came for him at last. It was a pair eyes, peering out of the gathered crowds, green like the ones he loved, but paler and set into different, finer features. The look was almost as ensnaring as...

Before he'd had a chance to seek out the gaze's owner, to make sense of the face and pinpoint its sex, music returned for Sixsmith, this time utterly recognisable. Rufus was snatched away from the icy dream by a familiar tune. His eyes fluttered open and his head rolled right to find its source.

The beastly black instrument, a pair of wet swimming trunks dropped to the tiles beside it, was being tamed by the easy sway of a long naked torso. The melody Rufus was being stirred with was a rendition of Grieg's "Morning Mood", played with the cheeky flair he'd come to expect from its towel-clad performer.

Rufus turned to curl on his side, slipping both hands beneath his cheek, and took in the sight and the sound like a tonic for his sleep-worn brain. The melody moved its way up through the muscles of the thin graceful arms gliding above the claviature. Its notes rippled the skin and sinews of the bare shoulders and back. It seemed to vibrate and coil the thick dark wisps of wet hair clinging to the nape of an elegant neck. The sight was too beautiful and one for which he was beyond grateful. Overwhelmed, Sixsmith heard himself sigh with pleasure, but without any poetry whatsoever.

"Fucking Christ.."

He closed his eyes again and wondered how the scene would alter when he next opened them. When he did, moments later, Robert Frobisher was sitting on the bed beside him. He was beaming down a grin.

"You were blaspheming just now, Sixsmith. Anything in particular about?"


	2. The Hangover

"You," murmured Rufus. "You look sweeter than sin."

Here was no hyperbole. Each and every morning saw Sixsmith near thunderstruck at the sight of the man he loved. Now he thought again, as he had countless times since Fate saw it right to reunite them under the Corsican stars: _how the hell did I get so lucky?_

For a moment they lingered together in the simple pleasure of exchanged gazes. A veil of sunshine and vanilla seemed to cling to Robert, a scented halo swirling the onyx of hair plastered in wet slicks about his head. The green irises that smiled down at Sixsmith had already turned into bottomless traps for the Sicilian rays and, above them, Robert's eyebrows were like black brushstrokes of a painter's wet brush. And the mouth... Rufus knew he'd never see Robert's mouth as anything less than a ruby-red altar to be worshipped and wanked to.

He wanted to touch him but Robert reached first, smoothing a kind hand over Sixsmith's brow. Rufus sighed against the touch.

"You really are exceptionally beautiful this morning, Robert. Is it the sun's doing?"  
  
"Doubtful, Sixsmith. It's only out to age me. But I won't let it. I've slathered myself in factor 50. And Megan, too, you'll be pleased to know. It's only ten and already beating it down something fierce."  
  
"Ten?? Lord..." groaned Rufus and twisted his face back into the pillow. Robert's hand went with him, comforting strokes passing through Sixsmith's hair.  
  
"You're hungover and on hols, Sixsmith. You're allowed."  
  
"And where is our lass?"  
  
"Breakfasted and gone into town with Antonella. You know, barely a day here and she already seems perfectly content. So you can forget Sarai's doomsaying."  
  
"Nearly fourteen. You can't blame her mother for predicting she'd spend the next three weeks holed up in her bedroom, staring into her phone."  
  
"Well, no doubt she'll be doing some of that. But if I was a girl of fourteen and staying next to a town full of Italian boys on school holiday..."  
  
Rufus turned a glaring eye from the pillow.  
  
"Don't you dare, Robert. Besides, she's got her lad back home. Her Jedi knight."  
  
"Mmm, heard last night they are taking the summer off."  
  
Sixsmith's brow arched. Putting his surprise aside, he let himself smile. Megan and Robert had been thick as thieves almost from the moment they'd met and, jealous as he was at times of their confidence, Rufus was also proud of his daughter's natural bond with the man he now shared his life with.

Robert's arms lifted over his head and his long torso grew longer still as he shivered through a stretch. Still donning that sly grin Sixsmith loved so much, he slinked himself beneath the sheets and pressed his back flush against Rufus, who huffed the angst of his headache into his lover's wet hair.  
  
"Thank you for that wakeup, Robert. You retrieved me from the depths of an odd dream."  
  
"You do seem a bit rough, though, love," said Robert, reaching back to drape Rufus' arm over his chest. "Your hangovers really are unkind to you."  
  
"Worse and worse as the years roll by. And just why is it that they give you a miss?"  
  
Robert grinned back and slid Sixsmith's hand against his heart, caressing.   
  
"They don't," he arched back to steal a peck. "They just find other ways of manifesting themselves."

Rufus' hand began to roam of its own accord, savouring the smooth warm skin.

"Three weeks of sun and sloth..."

"Mmm..."

"A charming villa."

"All to ourselves."

"And we've only just arrived."

"So many possibilities."

"So many new places to..."

Robert wiggled himself closer and cast back another grin.  
  
"Speaking of - I saw you eyeing up the place last night," He craned his long neck further, enough to encourage Rufus with another kiss, this one deeper and designed to coax out something more. "Tell me what you're scheming for us, Sixsmith."

Rufus sighed, the simple lulling pleasure of Robert's voice and kisses easing the throbbing ache in his head. Slipping a hand beneath the towel, he sought out his lover's cock, pleasantly cool and silky, a soft weight in the cradle of his curled fingers. He felt utterly spoiled.

"I thought... one fine night... on the rooftop terrace. Under the Sicilian stars." He let his lips nuzzle the warmth of Robert's neck and suckled a droplet from the wet tresses pressed there. "We'll throw down blankets over the warm tiles and let the crickets serenade our leisurely fuck."  
  
"About time we christened another patch of night sky..."  
  
"Yes. I want to look up and see nothing but your heavenly nakedness and constellations without end."  
  
"And then an aiming contest," Robert shook with a snicker, even as his hips began to roll and press lazily into Sixsmith's touch, "to see who can spunk closer to the Milky Way."  
  
"It's all that there is up there, you know. Nocturnal emissions of countless dark angels like yourself."  
  
"Sixsmith, you are very clearly still drunk. You are talking wonderful rubbish."  
  
"You don't trust a scientist?" Rufus wrapped his hand more fully about Robert's prick, half filled now from the ministrations of idle fingers, and gave it a squeeze. "These are hard facts, young man."

They paused for giggles and Robert rolled to face him. They pressed wholly beneath the sheets, legs settling into an easy tangle, Robert's towel the only barrier between them. Their caresses broadened. Robert's hands roamed the length of Sixsmith's back and he kissed him deeply, wetting Rufus' dry mouth with coffee and citrus. After that, they gave way into sporadic pecks, preferring words murmured soft and close against each other's mouths. Sixsmith's hangover was slowly being cocooned up in bliss.

"More, Sixsmith. Where else?"  
  
"I really must have you in that pool, my angel."  
  
"I'd like that. Although trawling her pool for escaped ejaculate might not sit too well with our hostess."  
  
Rufus chortled at the image.  
  
"Poor Antonella. Fishing for cum, swearing her head off. You're very considerate, Robert. In that case, I'll dive down for you. And you can come in my mouth while I hold my breath."  
  
Robert's hips rutted against Rufus through the thin divide of cloth, a pleasant rough frot against both their cocks.  
  
"My pearl diver. But you mustn't swallow. I'll swim down to meet you after and eat myself out of your gorgeous mouth. What else, love? Where else?"  
  
Rufus nodded towards the hulking black Borgato in the middle of the bedroom and Robert rolled his eyes.  
  
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Rufus! Really? The cliché!"  
  
"I meant on the keyboard, sweet boy. I'm keen to see if you can compose as well with your arse as you can with those talented fingers."

"Do you promise me black key shaped bruises, love?"

Sixsmith paused for a smirk then pushed himself against Robert's mouth with a breathless kiss.   
  
"I'll fuck you so hard we'll need to have the thing re-tuned."

And with that they set about getting each other off in earnest. A hoist from Rufus and Robert's lithe body was straddling his hips, the towel pooling down over Sixsmith's thighs. Hips grinding, quickened breaths rising to moans, cocks pawed and stroked together fast and hard until warm wetness covered their skin and they collapsed into it, shivering and contented.     
  
A quick pass over cum streaked bellies with Robert's discarded towel and then they curled together as before and held one another close, watching specks of dust course lazily down through the dark gold light of the bedroom. Robert's head rested against Sixsmith's chest.   
  
"My love. My own gorgeous Sixsmith. Why have I yet to write a single symphony in your praise?"  
  
"At least in part, Mr Frobisher, because your considerable talents are presently fully committed to scoring that... art thing."  
  
"Sixsmith, I know 'alternative virtual reality video game' is a mouthful. So just call it 'The Oak Tree'."  
  
"All I know is that you're surrendering your holiday to it. And that it keeps you up at night."  
  
"You keep me up at night." Robert murmured his deflection. His fingers arched over Sixsmith's heart and the tips marched a silent rhythm there. Rufus knew his mind had drifted away, towards his music. 

Rufus frowned and pressed his lips into Robert's hair. Something stray in his subconscious had been nagging at him, some remnant of his icy dream which now amplified at the mention of the score Robert had been struggling with for months and had brought with him to Sicily to conquer at last. Unsure of the connection, lacking words, he let the feeling go. 

"All this time and I still can't get enough of you, Robert. Gorgeous Robert. I want to eat you up. I want to scoff you for my breakfast."  
  
And with that, as if on queue, Sixsmith's stomach roared with hunger. Robert laughed.   
  
"There's a far more sensible breakfast to be had in the kitchen, Rufus. Sweet-ricotta cannoli and some sort of brioche-type things. And blood orange juice, freshly squeezed. And you shall have coffee. Plenty of it."

 

**Author's Note:**

> \- This story takes place several months after the events of [Rehfan's "Stars and Hearts"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1882467). References to "Orlando" are based on the book as well as the film.
> 
> \- Warm thanks to [rayon_violet](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rayon_violet/pseuds/rayon_violet) for support and help with background research.
> 
> \- I'm a newbie fic writer and this feels like a bit of an undertaking, especially as I have approximately 5% of Rehfan's talent. I hope I can get through this...


End file.
